I wasn’t sure what the answer to this one was, recently.. consequently, I did some checking.

The focus of bilingual speakers of particular languages can be broken-down by place, generally speaking: Hispanics – FL and South West (makes sense)

Chinese – Ca and New York
Slavic – New Jersey, New York, and Illinois

The amount of bilingual children within america is climbing… which is a wonderful thing should you ask me!

While this does not give us EXACTLY how many people are bilingual, this tendency appears to be a great one if you ask me. Bilingualism is developing in america, however, I feel we must break it down much more…

To begin with, we must define “bilingual.” That, as simple as it seems, is extremely challenging. “You start-off with something like “someone who is able to speak two languages.” Fair enough? Sure.

What exactly does this mean to be able to talk in two languages? I am able to spell hello in perhaps 5? I’m native in English, speak Spanish at a fairly eloquent level, and am a high beginner or low intermediate in German. Am I trilingual? Bilingual? Who knows. Who cares.

The point is, bilingual is difficult to determine because language is difficult to define. You have the websites like CTB, European Framework, and various others. It is much easier to find the advantages of being bilingual compared to the real description of it… go figure.

In Miami, for instance, 1 of the concerns is what is the pupil’s first language.

OK…

This was astonishing to me. That amount is more than I would have believed. When these children should be taught the basics of English, and it does place stress on our training system (hot issue!)

That covers the US, but now how about the planet? Many nations exist in which bilingualism is the standard as opposed to-the rule. European nations? That is quite ordinary. Singapore is another nation where this practice is entirely common; English normally being one of-the languages. It appears that while raising bilingual children other places outside the United States do a lot more to encourage bilingual education. This is often understood better by knowing the most frequent second language within the planet is English.

America enjoys the position of being one of the big nations on earth. English is the language of commerce, company, travel, and Hollywood. This means everyone else needs to learn English. Fortunate for people! Nevertheless, personally I think the average American, particularly in rural America, is missing the amazing gift of being bilingual. We have definitely proven that it is more common outside the US, while we might not have drilled down just how many people are bilingual.

Our aim at Uceda School is to train people on esl, bilingualism, and raising bilingual kids. Stay tuned for more information, because this is exactly what we will do here consistently through posts, research, personal anecdotes, and whatever else we can produce!